


Unstoppable force, immovable object

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Fluff, Love, Magnets, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: But soon enough he finds himself calculating her trajectory as she bounds across the console room, mapping the angles of her smile, analysing the chemical components of the stuff that she uses on her face and hair...she is an all new type of science you see, and one he is eager to learn.





	Unstoppable force, immovable object

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [](https://juliet316.livejournal.com/profile)[**juliet316**](https://juliet316.livejournal.com/) : distance, we’re stronger together than apart [](https://professor-spork.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://professor-spork.livejournal.com/)**professor_spork** : magnetic poetry

_A magnet: is a material or object that produces a magnetic field._

He is, first and foremost, clever. He has a scientific mind that thinks in scientific ways. He’s logical and precise and practiced and can recite the periodic tables of a hundred different worlds without even thinking.

And then he meets her. She is golden bright, shining with an inner brilliance and strength and so much _love_ that he can hardly believe that this stunning blonde creature even exists in a universe as dark as the one that he inhabits.

But soon enough he finds himself calculating her trajectory as she bounds across the console room, mapping the angles of her smile, analysing the chemical components of the stuff that she uses on her face and hair...

She is an all new type of science you see, and one he is eager to learn.

_Magnetic fields are invisible to the naked eye but are responsible for the force that pulls other ferromagnetic materials to it and attracts or repels other magnets._

He is drawn to her, inexplicably, and against all odds and reasoning. He isn’t entirely sure why, but he is repeatedly surprised at the way she fits in his arms – so easily. The way she snugs up against his side like she was made to do just that. Her small hands are exactly soft enough to neutralise the roughness of his own, her stubbornness a force no less potent than his own.

And then there’s the way she always comes back to him. She collides with him enthusiastically, trusting that he will be there to catch her if she should stumble. He of course, always is. How could he not? He couldn’t bear to disappoint her like that.

_A magnet has two poles – a north pole and a south pole. If you try and place two North or two South Pole ends together they will repel each other._

She does crossword puzzles whilst he does maintenance on the TARDIS, seeks his help when she comes across a clue she doesn’t know the answer to, asks him random questions nineteen to the dozen just because she can.

Or maybe she just likes listening to him explain things. He’s a good teacher, has a way of making sense to her like no other teacher in school ever did – even if he does sigh and roll his eyes good naturedly before he settles in to tell her.

“What happens,” she asks one day, all serious beneath a flip of blonde fringe. “When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?”

Briefly he wonders what the hell he’s done to her that she’s actually _seeking out_ new things to learn – and philosophical nonsense to boot. But then he returns to his soniccing and tries to act like he’s not impressed by her.

“Never happens,” he tells her glibly. “It’s impossible.”

“Can’t be,” she says, firmly.

“If there’s a thing that can’t be stopped, it’s not possible for there to be something else that can’t be moved.” He reasons out. “They can’t both exist.”

She chews over this for a long time. So long that he’s all but forgotten about it.

“I reckon you’re wrong.” She says finally, almost apologetically.

He shrugs and lets it go. It’s certainly been so before and if anyone was going to prove him wrong about something then it would be her.

He finds he doesn’t mind so much.

_If however, you place the North Pole of one magnet near the South Pole of another..._

She is golden bright, shining with an inner brilliance and strength and so much _love_ that he can barely look at her – this stunning, beautiful, amazing blonde creature who loves him more than anything else in her whole universe.

He is simultaneously attracted and repelled by her, horrified at what she has become to save him but so in awe of her raw courage.

And when she admits what she can see, that she can actually _see_ what he does he suddenly understands why she’s crying, so desperately and quietly.

“Why do they hurt?” she sobs and it’s like he’s been flipped around, North to her South.

“C’mere.” He says and their bodies tremble in the slipstream between them, aching, _waiting_ for something beyond either of their comprehension to draw them together.

He takes her in his arms and bends his head, calculating the angle at which he will need to descend in order to best capture her lips with his.

Bad Wolf thinks she can’t be stopped does she? Well if she’s the unstoppable force then that makes him the immovable object.

And when it comes to Rose he will not be moved.

_...they will come, you understand, to be joined together because of the magnetic pull between them._

Grandpa Prentice was a builder by trade, who died when Rose was very small. He was the kind of man who seemed simple enough at heart, but at the same time was honestly fascinated by the world around him. He liked nature and when she came to visit he would take her down to the park to look at fallen leaves. He explained to her that these dry, shrivelled up things had once been alive, green blood pumping through the veins of the tree to make the leaves colour.

He taught her how to swing, how the motion of her legs gave her impetus and carried her higher and higher until she jumped off and fell giggling into his arms. He showed her magic tricks – taught her how to pull a coin out of somebody’s ear and how to shuffle a deck of cards properly. He had a small pack of cards from British Airways just the right size for her little girl hands and they always played with them, even though he couldn’t read the numbers on them properly and she always won.

When she turned five he gave her a Science Discovery Kit for her birthday.

“What’s she gonna do with that?” her mother had been disgusted but Rose was delighted by the clear plastic prism in particular – throwing rainbows every which way across the flat. She didn’t even look at the magnets until he explained them to her and showed her how you could push one along without even touching it. Like magic!

Rose liked to take the two big magnets one in each hand and, tongue between her teeth, fruitlessly tried to press their North Poles together until one or the other flipped out of her hand and stuck itself onto the other one triumphantly.

~*~

  
There were no more birthday presents from Grandpa Prentice after her fifth birthday. No more trips to the park or science lessons in his little shed in the back corner of the garden. He died before Christmas even came and Rose was so devastated that she slept with her Science Discovery Kit for months.

Over the years parts of it went missing, zoomed up by the vacuum or lost in her sheets, but the cheap plastic prism always sat in pride of place on her window ledge with the magnets – just waiting for her to come and try to force them together and be friends again.

It wasn’t until she was nineteen that she met somebody who was better than her Grandpa at explaining things to her. And when she left behind the sad remains of her Science Discovery Kit and stepped out into the universe, Rose Tyler knew at least three very important things.

Everything has its time and everything dies. Your legs are two of the most important appendages you own. Magic tricks impress everyone – especially nine hundred year old Time Lords who can’t shuffle cards to save themselves.

And sometimes, if you push long and hard enough at the universe, the tables can turn and bring you abruptly into the path of something you never even knew you wanted to be connected to.


End file.
